Last week, the 2009 - 2014 term European Parliament held the last plenary session in Strasbourg and bid farewell to one of the EP seats, Strasbourg, which they visited more than fifty times in the last five years. With this plenary session, the usual work of the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) finished. After the Eastern, the politicians will not return to their offices in Brussels and will instead stay in their countries. Some will prepare for the EP elections in the end of May and some will finalise their career in this institution and prepare for the future challenges. (Suite...)

This April, the agenda of the European Parliament often is marked with words "the last". Next week, MEPs will hold the last 2009 - 2014 term plenary session in Strasbourg. Before it, the last committee and delegation meetings take place in Brussels. The Subcommittee on Human Rights (DROI) met for the last time last Tuesday. As usually, its agenda featured a big number of very important topics and at the end of the day no time for goodbye speeches was left. (Suite...)

Finalising their 2009 - 2014 EP term, this week parliamentarians returned to the Brussels plenary hall. After two years reconstruction works to repair roof constructions, the hall opened to host a short EP plenary session. Usually, every year twelve regular plenary sessions are held in Strasbourg and additional six two-day sessions in Brussels, but in the last two years all short sessions had to be cancelled. (Suite...)

Last week, European Parliament`s Subcommittee on Human Rights discussed EU human rights policies in Central Asian countries: Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. A group of experts from Germany and Spain presented a study on this topic conducted for the Subcommittee on Human Rights. (Suite...)

Not surprisingly, the conflict in Ukraine was once again the central question in the European Parliament`s plenary session agenda in Strasbourg this week. Illegal Russia`s aspirations to annex the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula and the reluctance of president Putin to respect the international law dominates the agendas not only in EU institutions, but in all important geopolitical organisations and in the most powerful countries around the world. (Suite...)

More than one year passed since in the last Strasbourg plenary session of 2012 the European Parliament adopted the Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World 2011 and the European Union`s policy on the matter by 482 votes in favour, 48 against and 83 abstentions. This report was prepared by the Lithuanian MEP, human rights coordinator of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), Leonidas Donskis. (Suite...)